


Shattering a Stony Mask

by Blade_Wielding_Ace



Category: Dr. STONE (Anime), Dr. STONE (Manga)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Fix-It, Guns, Gunshot Wounds, Hurt/Comfort, Injured Ishigami Senkuu, Injury, Minor Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-17
Updated: 2021-03-17
Packaged: 2021-03-26 00:33:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30097548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blade_Wielding_Ace/pseuds/Blade_Wielding_Ace
Summary: Stanley has finally caught up to them. Is this the end of the Kingdom of Science?Major spoilers for the events of chapters 188 and 189.((I’m so distraught and wrote this out of sheer terror for what’s going to happen in chapter 190))
Relationships: No Romantic Relationship(s)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 31





	Shattering a Stony Mask

Senku was absolutely gambling with their lives. Sending Kohaku, Tsukasa, and Hyoga to get rid of the enemy transceiver? It left everyone at the base defenseless. It was their only chance to buy more time and possibly create a functional crystal for the Medusa device. He was gambling with his friends’ lives.

He didn’t want anyone to die.

How could he let this happen?

  
  
  


_ ‘No _ .’ He squeezed his eyes shut and inhaled deeply. ‘ _ Now isn’t the time for well-written regrets. I don’t have time to remorse about the past and what could’ve been done differently.’ _ He opened his eyes and a grin crept across his face; it wasn’t joyful, but it was determined. 

  
  


Sweat began to drip down Senku’s face as he sprinted behind Kaseki. His breath ached in his lungs and ripped at the stitch in his side. He watched the old man gain even more ground and cursed himself for being so unathletic, despite living years in the stone world. 

His feet pounded against the stone and he could hear Stanley and his team gaining on them. Senku made a decision. Between an old man and him, they would target him. Kaseki had made it outside the fortress and Senku would buy him and Chrome as much time as possible. He changed directions and sprinted for the heart of the building - straight to the lab. 

“They must have a lab down there! Don’t let him get to it!”

He only barely heard the yell over the sound of his own blood rushing through his ears. Senku jumped over a fallen table that had been overturned in the scramble to flee. In the same moment, a familiar sensation of metal punching through soft flesh tore through his body and he shrieked in pain. His feet hit the ground but he barely felt it as his legs collapsed beneath him. Senku’s cheek slammed into the stone floor sending stars swirling across his vision as he failed to catch himself.

He could hear footsteps behind him and the fear pushed him just enough to roll onto his back. A last ditch move to face his attackers head-on. Not that he could win.

“I’ll give you one last chance,” the helmeted soldier approached him, gun in hand, “You can join Dr. Xeno and we will not kill you.” Senku couldn’t do anything except clutch his stomach and stare at the ceiling.

Stanley took off the helmet and Senku heard it clatter to the floor. The soldier planted a foot against Senku’s chest before he could even attempt to scramble away. He wheezed as the breath was forced out of his lungs. His head lolled will the loss of oxygen in his lungs and blood in his veins, the life leeching out of him as Stanley’s foot pressed him against the floor.

He saw Stanley raise his gun.

His limbs felt like lead.

He looked into the barrel as it was pointed at his face.

A shiver was sent up his broken body. He swallowed hard and stared into the face of death.

  
  
  
  
  


Senku didn’t want to die.

  
  
  
  
  


His vision was black.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


His vision was black . . . but he wasn’t dead. He knew exactly what happened and he knew exactly what had to happen next.

1 . . .

2 . . .

3 . . .

4 . . .

5 . . .

He had to keep count if Luna and Chelsea didn’t make it far enough away to revive them.

8 . . .

9 . . .

10 . . .

* * *

Almost everyone from the Kingdom of Science had been found and revived. But Hyoga wasn’t among them. Senku wasn’t among them, either. They were certain that the scientist would’ve been with Kaseki or Chrome, Kaseki even confirmed that Senku was with him when Stanley and his men invaded. So where was he? And where were Stanley and his men?

They had found the men keeping the captives, but that was not even a third of the group.

* * *

19,324 . . .

19,325 . . .

19,326 . . .

19,327 . . .

* * *

Everyone had regrouped on the top floor of the fortress, preparing to begin a grueling search for Senku.

“He has to be close,” Kohaku, newly healed thanks to the wonders of the doctor stone, “Given the timing that Kaseki saw him and his horrendous stamina, he can’t be very far away.”

“Alright!” Ryusui exclaimed with his classic feral grin, “We’ll group into teams and begin searching the surrounding area.” Francois laid a gentle hand on her employer’s shoulder.

“Fortunately, the process of petrification has healed everyone's injuries, but if we don’t find Master Senku before nightfall, I must insist that we stop the search for the night. We have survived for thousands of years in petrification, and I am sure that Master Senku, of all people, would be able to tolerate one night.”

“Then we better get searching now, before it gets dark!!” Of course, Taiju immediately jumped into action. At least, until he was stopped from running straight out into the forest by Tsukasa’s arm. 

“I agree, but we need to coordinate where the search teams will go so that we cover the maximum amount of ground.”

“Eheh, that makes sense,” Taiju laughed only somewhat sheepishly.

“Suika-chan? Would you mind running to the lab with me to get some paper and graphite?” Gen crouched down next to the small girl, placing a hand on her melon helmet.

“Of course! We’ll be back in just a minute!”

The two took off together, entering the lower levels of the building and avoiding the various scattered objects in the hallways. Suika was chatting merrily about something or another when Gen pulled her to a stop. She looked up at him, confused, but he wasn’t looking at her. He was staring at the end of the hallway.

She traced his gaze, studying the area with eyes honed by lenses of science. Finally she saw it: barely poking around the corner of the wall was a stone hand. One much too large to be Senku’s. They approached quickly - the person was petrified afterall - and turned the corner to find- “One of Stanley-chan’s men? Why is he down here?”

“Gen? There’s more of them,” Suika was getting nervous. Why would Stanley send a whole group of his men down here if Dr. Xeno wasn’t in the building anymore?

Suika stepped around the doorway to look into the lab, and what she saw made her heart skip a beat and her face pale. 

“Suika-chan? Are you okay?”

She heard the mentalist approach her, but she couldn’t bring herself to do anything but take in the scene before her. A sharp intake of breath from behind her was the only warning before Gen picked her up and fled the scene. He didn’t stop running until they reached the others.

His eyes were wide and he was still holding Suika like a lifeline. He was breathing so heavily that he couldn’t answer anyone’s inquiries. He took a few more heaving breaths as Kohaku took Suika from his arms.

“I- we found . . . Senku-chan . . . in the lab.” 

“SENKU!!!!” Taiju took off sprinting toward the entrance of the fortress.

The rest of the group, as one and fueled by the panic they had seen in Gen’s eyes, raced after Taiju toward the lab. Passing the two petrified soldiers was concerning enough, but not necessarily a reason to panic. Finally reaching the lab revealed a macabre scene.

The rest of Stanley’s men stood around the room, weapons held in stony hands, eyes frozen on the two stone figures in the middle of the room. Of every person from the pre-petrified world, Senku was the only person that no one had ever seen encased in stone. But there his statue lay, hands clasped over his own stomach, clothes soaking up the puddle of cooling blood that had seeped from beneath his hands. He lay trapped under Stanley’s boot like a bug pinned to a display. Stanley stood over him, the gun loaded and aimed directly at Senku’s forehead. If it had gone off even seconds before the Medusa device went off, they wouldn’t have another body to depetrify, they’d have another body to bury beside Hyoga’s.

But even that wasn’t what stunned the Kingdom of Science into frozen silence, it was the genuine terror that was plastered in a stone mask over Senku’s face.

Tsukasa was looking at a man that he had once tried - and technically succeeded - at killing. But seeing him in such a vulnerable, defenceless, and  _ scared _ form . . . it filled him with rage. Wasn’t this the man he had pledged to protect not only once but twice? He leapt forward flipping the gun’s barrel upward with one hand and delivered a vicious punch to Stanley’s statue with the other. The statue flew across the room and clattered to the floor and stone fingers that had gripped the gun separated from their owner. He tossed the gun on the ground and turned his attention back to Senku.

His actions broke the spell that held everyone in place and they moved forward to join Tsukasa next to their fallen friend. Kohaku knelt next to the stone man and pulled the clothes back from his chest. Up closer and without Stanley there, Kohaku could see the way that his ribcage had been caving under the soldier’s weight.

Her eyes trailed from his injuries to his face, where they traced over his foreign expression. Teeth gritted into a terrified and pained snarl, eyes widened in fear; it was such an awful expression on a person she always knew to be confident and almost inhumanly fearless.

“We are not reviving Stanley,” she said resolutely, turning to look at her allies surrounding her. “At least, not yet. Because I don’t think I could refrain from killing him and something tells me Tsukasa wouldn’t stop me.”

There was silence as the image of an injured friend battled with the desire to revive everyone. Friends come first.

Chrome hesitantly took up a spot next to Kohaku on the ground. Pulling a bottle of revival fluid from his belt, he uncorked it in a swift motion and poured it over Senku’s head.

* * *

22,014 . . .

22,015 . . .

22,016 . . .

22,017 . . .

_ Crack _

Lines of light formed over his blackened vision.

The stone shattered, but he didn’t feel relief. His vision was white and there was a quiet ringing in his ears from the shattering sound of rock. He felt panic race through his body again as the adrenaline and cortisol from his near-death was pumped through his veins. His lungs realized they could hold air again and he began to take heaving breaths as he scrambled backwards away from a possible threat he couldn’t see.

* * *

The rock shards exploded off Senku, the familiar process of depetrification spreading over his body. There was a deep inhale as his lungs took in the oxygen they were so deprived of, and in the same moment, Chrome and Kohaku could see Senku’s pupils dilate into black disks with red outlines as they were flooded with light.

In a swift motion, Senku’s palms pushed off the ground and propelled him backward away from them. His eyes still honed on the space that Stanley would’ve been occupying. The sudden speed and movement made Chrome jump in surprise.

Francois knelt down carefully beside the shaking figure, reaching out to brush his arm with her fingertips. “Master Senku, Stanley and his men are petrified. The only people conscious in this room are your friends.” She frowned as she felt his subtle shaking beneath her hand. His eyes turned slightly toward her, but still clearly not seeing anything as the red eyes began to blink heavily and rapidly.

Taiju crept closer, trying to keep from scaring his best friend, “Senku? Are you okay?”

The image of the scientist in front of them was too vastly different from the image they had in their heads: prone on the ground, blood still soaking his clothes, and trembling like they were in freezing temperatures.

“Yeah . . . I’m ten-billion percent okay,” he spoke finally as his stress declined and eyes finally managed to adjust to the light. He stared at Stanley’s damaged statue with an indiscernible emotion before dragging his gaze over his friends. “Where’s Hyoga?”

He didn’t quite speak it like a question; more like a statement that needed confirming.

“He’s dead,” Kohaku replied quietly, “but he died in battle, aiding us in destroying the transmitter.” 

“Has he been buried yet?” Senku seemed to be regaining his stature as he regained understanding of the situation.

“No.”

“We’ll bury him, regather our supplies, and continue moving forward. He died for our cause and I won’t let him have died in vain.”

**Author's Note:**

> So I immediately began stress-writing this fic right after I read chapter 189 and now I have to wait until Sunday to know if everyone actually died or not. Because apparently Inagaki has no problem killing his characters now. I’m really hoping he’s just trying to stress us the hell out and they’ll be revived somehow like Senku was after being killed. But I think Taiju and Hyoga are both confirmed dead and I can’t stand for that. 
> 
> So I stress-wrote this because I’m sad.  
> Inagaki better be ready to catch these hands.
> 
> (Also sorry about any weird time gaps but I was too worried about the characters to care about filling in the extra info)  
> ((Also also, I had to include Senku injury because there still isn’t enough of it in this fandom))


End file.
